Experts Weigh In on Trump's and Clinton's Plans to Stop Another Mass Shooting

Donald Trump speaks during an event at St. Anselm College New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester, N.H., June 13, 2016. Hillary Clinton speaks at the New Jersey primary night rally, June 7, 2016, in the Brooklyn Borough of New York.

In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, politicians and civilians alike are looking for answers on how to prevent other attacks.

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The two presumptive presidential nominees have weighed in, and while neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton has given extensive details about their respective plans, there is enough to evaluate the plans' effectiveness.

Trump's Call for a Temporary Muslim Ban

Since the Orlando shooting, Trump has doubled down on his call last year to temporarily bar foreign Muslims from entering the U.S. On Monday he also called for a ban on immigration from "areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies."

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an informal Clinton adviser, said that he finds it difficult to be analytical and fair in evaluating Trump's suggested plan to prevent other attacks.

"He is playing on people's fears — and the fact that some of them won't bother to learn where Mateen was born — to demagogue the issue," he said. Mateen was born in New York to Afghan parents.

John Cohen, a former acting Homeland Security undersecretary and now an ABC News consultant, also noted that since Mateen was born in the United States, Trump's plan would be ineffective at eliminating similar shootings.

In addition to saying that a ban on foreign Muslims "isn't feasible," he said that it could do damage both at home and abroad.

Daniel Pipes, a Republican commentator who was an adviser to Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign, agreed with that sentiment, saying that keeping out foreign Muslims would be not only not useful but also "counterproductive because it bans those Muslims who are our allies as well as those who are our enemies."

Clinton's Call for a Team Focused on Lone Wolf Attackers

Details are scant about the "dedicated team" that Clinton would form that would be "exclusively" tasked with tracking suspected lone wolf terrorists, but Cohen and O'Hanlon think it would be the more effective of the two plans, though they both point out that there are flaws.

"She presented a good grasp on the problem," Cohen said. "What she didn't address is that a large number of these homegrown violent extremists have underlying mental health issues that are the underlying factor behind their becoming radicalized."

He added, "ISIS has targeted this vulnerable population, and our efforts to address violent extremism need to address these underlying issues as well. Today they don't."

O'Hanlon said that Clinton's comments "lack detail and therefore can't be critiqued for how she would defeat ISIS."

"But at least she's engaging on the specifics of the issue without trying to divide Americans from each other," he said.

Pipes, who describes himself as "never Trump, never Clinton," said that while he is opposed to Trump's suggested ban, he thinks that Clinton's reticence to focus on Muslims makes her plan ineffective as well. "I think hers is ineffective because she's unwilling to focus in on the target population," he said.

In addition, Pipes thinks that she is focusing on "extraneous factors like gun control," which he believes wouldn't have affected the Orlando attack.

Experts aren't the only ones wondering about the most effective way to prevent another mass shooting. Clinton has called for a national discussion to find a solution.

"The barbarity we face from radical jihadists is profound," she said in a speech today. "So I would like to have a worthy debate on the best way to keep our country safe. That's what Americans deserve."